The Meritocracy Trap

How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite

By: Daniel Markovits

Narrated by: Fred Sanders

A revolutionary new argument from eminent Yale Law professor Daniel Markovits attacking the false promise of meritocracy

It is an axiom of American life that advantage should be earned through ability and effort. Even as the country divides itself at every turn, the meritocratic ideal – that social and economic rewards should follow achievement rather than breeding – reigns supreme. Both Democrats and Republicans insistently repeat meritocratic notions. Meritocracy cuts to the heart of who we are. It sustains the American dream.

But what if, both up and down the social ladder, meritocracy is a sham? Today, meritocracy has become exactly what it was conceived to resist: a mechanism for the concentration and dynastic transmission of wealth and privilege across generations. Upward mobility has become a fantasy, and the embattled middle classes are now more likely to sink into the working poor than to rise into the professional elite. At the same time, meritocracy now ensnares even those who manage to claw their way to the top, requiring rich adults to work with crushing intensity, exploiting their expensive educations in order to extract a return. All this is not the result of deviations or retreats from meritocracy but rather stems directly from meritocracy’s successes.

This is the radical argument that Daniel Markovits prosecutes with rare force. Markovits is well placed to expose the sham of meritocracy. Having spent his life at elite universities, he knows from the inside the corrosive system we are trapped within. Markovits also knows that, if we understand that meritocratic inequality produces near-universal harm, we can cure it. When The Meritocracy Trap reveals the inner workings of the meritocratic machine, it also illuminates the first steps outward, towards a new world that might once again afford dignity and prosperity to the American people.

*Includes a PDF of figures and tables.

Good book.

Lots of interesting ideas and information. Well balanced and focused on real data and not stereotypes. Finishes well with ideas on how to address the root causes.

spot on

Easy to listen to at 1.5 speed. Adept assessment of modern income inequality. Robust conclusion albeit narrow and ultimately assumes implicit the monetary mechanisms that create the social corruption.

Eye opening

Having gone to private school I could relate to this . The hustle culture of the upper class is real and destructive to well being of those who make it and self esteem to those who fail.

A well-argued theory

This book starts off with a bang. Markovits' introduction has so many assertions that it may be worth listening to twice, especially for those of us who have always assumed meritocracy is an unchallengeable good.

It's an interesting thesis. I can envision many people reading the sections about how meritocracy hurts the elite and rolling their eyes, but, by the end of the book, Markovits has made a strong case that "the rich and the rest" can find common ground that benefits them both.

The general premise of "The Meritocracy Trap" is that the rich are able to invest substantially more in developing the human capital of their children, and then use this advantage to make the work at the upper limits of the job pool ever more lucrative (if not necessarily productive toward societal-level benefits). This repeats itself from generation to generation, in a positive feedback loop (read: trap). Whereas the aristocratic rich were susceptible to hard-working meritocrats usurping their position as elites, the meritocrats are continuously improving their position, making their replacement unlikely as long as creating "the best and brightest" is the ideal.

I would like to have seen Markovits co-author this book with an economist (he has some influential ones there at Yale) just to provide a deeper perspective into the financial aspects. Even a professor of education would have been a good addition, but he still does a thorough job of fleshing out his thesis.

It does seem to never surpass the level of being a theory, and I am sure there will be some rebuttals in the following weeks. However, this is a worthwhile book to get the conversation started. We DO need a dialogue between the rich and the rest, and we DO need to find a common ground where both groups are more satisfied than they are currently.

Fred Sanders does a good job narrating, at it was easily understandable through 3.50x speed.

This book turned me around 180 degrees.

Who would have thought there was so much harm being done by meritocracy. The book was very insightful!